For a long, long time every m&m commercial featured the dipping in the pool of chocolate followed by the shower of candy coating. This imagery definitely stuck in my mind and tumbled out as the Chowdown Pool much later.

The second, and far less famous influence, was the Ross Root Feeder. I worked on this account for close to a decade working on package design and print ads.

But did you catch the phrase that I just used?"Nutrients and trace minerals." I can't begin to tell you how many times I had to lay out or keyline stuff that included that phrase.

In the late '70s/early '80s I drew a storyboard for a potential television commercial that showed dancing, happy, sparkling nutrients and trace minerals going from the device, into the roots of the tree and and up into the healthy shimmering leaves.

The client hated it.As far as I know that artwork is completely lost.But I took some of the ideas from those storyboards and incorporated them into the emerging Beanworld.

I think by the time that the Tarzan parody ad aired...people already understood the Rosser Reeves USP message that "m&m's melt in your mouth and not in your hand." And pitch was running its course regarding "no chocolate mess." But one should not underestimate what a strong message that was to post-war baby boomer parents trying to keep a modicum of cleanliness in their homes. m&m mars was in a very intense struggle with the Hershey bar (one of the de facto wartime currencies for the American military overseas). The candy coated little treats were a genuinely unique product and these ads really did an excellent job of communicating its unique properties. The visual imagery obviously hit a bulls eye with me!